Chapter 15

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XV

A carriage came early for Sister Giovanna that evening, and the footman sent in a message by the portress. The patient was worse, he said, and the doctor hoped that the nurse would come as soon as she conveniently could. She came down in less than five minutes, in her wide black cloak, carrying her little black bag in her hand. It was raining heavily and she drew the hood up over her head before she left the threshold, though the servant was holding up a large umbrella.

The portress had asked the usual questions of him as soon as he presented himself, but Sister Giovanna repeated them. Was the carriage from the Villino Barini? It was. To take the nurse who was wanted for Baroness Barini? Yes; the Signora Baronessa was worse, and that was why the carriage had come half-an-hour earlier. The door of the brougham was shut with a sharp snap, the footman sprang to the box with more than an average flunkey's agility, and the nun was driven rapidly away. Knowing that the house she was going to was one of those little modern villas on the slope of the Janiculum which have no arched entrance and often have no particular shelter at the front door, she did not take the trouble to push her hood back, as she would need it again so soon.

In about ten minutes the carriage stopped, the footman jumped down with his open umbrella in his hand, and let her into the house. Before she could ask whether she had better leave her cloak in the hall, the man was leading the way upstairs; it was rather dark, but she felt that the carpet under her feet was thick and soft. She followed lightly, and a moment later she was admitted to a well-lighted room that looked like a man's library; the footman disappeared and shut the door, and the latch made a noise as if the key were being turned; as she supposed such a thing to be out of the question, however, she was ashamed to go and try the lock.

She thought she was in the study of the master of the house and that some one would come for her at once, and she stood still in the middle of the room; setting down her bag on a chair, she pushed the hood back from her head carefully, as nuns do, in order not to discompose the rather complicated arrangement of the veil and head-band.

She had scarcely done this when, as she expected, a door at the end of the room was opened. But it was not a stranger that entered; to her unspeakable amazement, it was Giovanni Severi. In a flash she understood that by some trick she had been brought to his brother's dwelling. She was alone with him and the door was locked on the outside.

She laid one hand on the back of the nearest chair, to steady herself, wondering whether she were not really lying ill in her bed and dreaming in the delirium of a fever. But it was no dream; he was standing before her, looking into her face, and his own was stern and dark as an Arab's. When he spoke at last, his voice was low and determined.

'Yes. You are in my house.'

Her tongue was loosed, with a cry of indignation.

'If you are not a madman, let me go!'

'I am not mad.'

His eyes terrified her, and she backed away from him towards the locked door. She almost shrieked for fear.

'If you have a spark of human feeling, let me out!'

'I am human,' he answered grimly, but he did not move to follow her.

'By whatever you hold sacred, let me go!' She was wrenching at the lock in despair with both hands, but sideways, while she kept her eyes on his.

'I hold you sacred--nothing else.'

'Sacred!' Her anger began to outbrave her terror now. 'Sacred, and you have trapped me by a vile trick!'

'Yes,' he answered, 'I admit that.'

He had not moved again and there was a window near her. She sprang to it and thrust the curtains aside, hoping to open the frame before he could stop her. But though she moved the fastenings easily, she could do no more, with all her strength, and Giovanni still stood motionless, watching her.

'You cannot open that window,' he said quietly. 'If you scream, no one will hear you. Do you think I would have brought you to a place where you could get help merely by crying out for it? The risk was too great. I have made sure of being alone with you as long as I choose.'

The nun drew herself up against the red curtains.

'I did not know that you were a coward,' she said.

'I am what you have made me, brave, cowardly, desperate--anything you choose to call it! But such as I am, you must hear me to the end this time, for you have no choice.'

Sister Giovanna understood that there was no escape and she stood quite still; but he saw that her lips moved a little.

'God is not here,' he said, in a hard voice, for he knew that she was praying.

'God is here,' she answered, crossing her hands on her breast.

He came a step nearer and leaned on the back of a chair; he was evidently controlling himself, for his movements were studiedly deliberate, though his voice was beginning to shake ominously.

'If God is with you, Angela, then He shall hear that I love you and that you are mine, not His! He shall listen while I tell you that I will not give you up to be murdered by priests for His glory! Do what He will, He shall not have you. I defy Him!'

The nun shrank against the curtain, not from the man, but at the words.

'At least, do not blaspheme!'

'I must, if it is blasphemy to love you.'

'Yours is not love. Would to heaven it were, as I thought it was to-day. Love is gentle, generous, tender----'

'Then be all three to me; for you love me, in spite of everything!'

'You have taught me to forget that I ever did,' she answered.

'Learn to remember that you did, to realise that you do, and forget only that I have used a trick to bring you here--a harmless trick, one carriage for another, my brother's orderly for a servant. I found out from Madame Bernard where you were going and I sent for you before the hour. You are as safe here as if you were praying in your chapel; in a few minutes the carriage will take you back, you will say you got into the wrong one by mistake, which is quite true, and the right one will take you where you are to go; you will be scarcely half-an-hour late and no one will ever know anything more about it.'

Sister Giovanna had listened patiently to his explanation, and believed what he said. He had always been impulsive to rashness, but now that her first surprise had subsided she was less afraid. He had evidently yielded to a strong temptation with the idea of forcing her to listen to him, and in reality, if she had understood herself, she was not able to believe that he would hurt her or bring any disgrace upon her.

'If you are in earnest,' she said, when he had finished, 'then let me go at once.'

'Presently,' he answered. 'This afternoon you made me promise to hear quietly what you had to say, and I did my best. I could not help your being frightened just now, I suppose--after all, I have carried you off from the door of your Convent, and I meant you to understand that you were helpless, and must listen. I ought to have put it differently, but I am not clever at such things. All I ask is that you will hear me. After all, that is what you asked of me to-day.'

He had begun to walk up and down before her, while he was speaking; but he did not come near her, for the chair stood between her and the line along which he was pacing backwards and forwards. Something in his way of speaking reassured her, as he jerked out the rather disconnected sentences. Women often make the mistake of thinking that when we men begin to stumble away from the straight chalk-line of that logic in which we are supposed by them to take such pride, our purpose is wavering, whereas the opposite is often the case. Men capable of sudden, direct, and strong action are often poor talkers, particularly when they are just going to spring or strike. A little hesitation is more often the sign of a near outbreak than of any inward weakening. But Sister Giovanna was deceived.

'I shall be forced to listen, if you insist,' she said, moving half a step forward from the curtain, 'but how can I trust you, while I am your prisoner?'

'You can trust me, if you will be generous,' Giovanni answered.

'I do not know what you mean by the word,' replied the nun cautiously. 'If I am not generous, as you mean it, what then?'

Severi stopped in his walk; his face began to darken again, and his voice was rough and hard.

'What then? Why then, remember what I am and where you are!'

Sister Giovanna drew back again.

'I would rather trust in God than trust you when you speak in that tone,' she said.

He had used the very words she had spoken in the cloister when he had tried to take her by the arm, but they had a very different meaning now; his dangerous temper was rising again and he was threatening her. Yet her answer produced an effect she was far from expecting. He turned to the writing-table near him, opened one of the drawers and took out an army revolver. Sister Giovanna watched him. If he was only going to kill her she was not afraid.

'I will force you to trust me,' he said, quickly examining the charge as he came towards her.

'By threatening me with that thing?' she asked with contempt. 'You are mistaken!'

He was close to her, but he offered her the butt-end of the weapon.

'No,' he said, 'I am not mistaken. It is I who fear death, as long as you are alive, and here it is, in your hand.' But she would not take the revolver from him. 'You will not take it? Well, there it is.' He laid it on the chair, which he placed beside her. 'If I come too near you, or try to touch even your sleeve, you can use it. The law will acquit you, and even praise you for defending yourself in need.'

'There must be no need,' she answered, looking at him fixedly. 'Say quickly what you have to say.'

'Will you not sit down, then?'

'No, thank you. I would rather not.'

It would have seemed like consenting to be where she was; and besides, the revolver lay on the nearest available chair and she would not touch it, much less hold it in her hand, if she sat down to listen. Giovanni leaned back against the heavy table at some distance from her, resting his hands on the edge, on each side of him.

'After I left you to-day,' he began, 'I had a long talk with Monsignor Saracinesca in the street. I asked him questions about obtaining a dispensation for you. He made it look impossible, of course--that was to be expected! But I got one point from him, which is important. He made it quite clear to me that the request to be released from your vows must come from you, if it is to be considered at all. You understand that, do you not?'

'Is it possible that you yourself do not yet understand?' Sister Giovanna asked, as quietly as she could. 'Did I not tell you to-day that no power could loose me from my vows?'

'You were mistaken. There is a power that can, and that rests with the Pope, and he shall exercise it.'

'I will not ask for a dispensation. I have told you that it is an impossibility----'

'There is no such thing as impossibility for men and women who love,' Giovanni answered. 'Have you forgotten the last words you said to me before I sailed for Africa?' He spoke gently now, and Sister Giovanna turned her face from him. 'You said, "I will wait for you for ever." Do you remember?'

'Yes. I remember.'

'Did you "wait for ever," Angela?'

She looked at him again, and then came forward a little, drawn by an impulse she could not resist.

'Did I love another man, that you reproach me?' she asked. 'Such as my life has been, have I lived it as a woman lives who has forgotten? I know I have not. Yes, Giovanni, I have waited, but as one waits who hopes to meet in heaven the dear one who is dead on earth. Do you still find fault with me? Would you rather have had me go back to the world and to society after mourning you as long as a girl of nineteen could mourn for a man to whom she had not been openly engaged? Was I wrong? If you had really been dead and could have seen me, would you have wished that I were living differently?'

For a moment he was moved and held out one hand towards her, hoping that she would come nearer.

'No,' he answered--'no, dear----'

'But that was the only question,' she said earnestly, 'and you have answered it!'

She would not take his hand and Giovanni dropped his own with a gesture of disappointment.

'No,' he replied, in a colder tone, 'it is not the question, for you have not told me all the truth. If I had not been gone five years, if I had come back the day before you took the last vows, would you have taken them?'

'No, indeed!'

'If I had come the very next day after, would you not have done your best to be set free?'

There was an instant's pause before she spoke; then the answer came, clear and distinct.

'No.'

Severi turned from her with an impatient movement of his compact head, and tapped the carpeted floor with his heel. His answer broke from his lips harshly.

'You never loved me!'

She would have done wisely if she had been silent then; but she could not, for his words denied the truth that had ruled her life.

'Better than I knew,' she said. 'Better than I knew, even then.'

'Even then?' The words had hope in them. 'And now?' He was suddenly breathless.

'Yes, even now!' The tide of truth lifted her from her feet and swept her onward, helpless. 'Giovanni! Giovanni! Do you think it costs me nothing to keep my word with God?'

But he had been disappointed too often now, and he could not believe at once.

'It costs you less than it would to keep your faith with me,' he answered.

'It is not true! Indeed, it is not true!'

'Then let the truth win, dear! All the rest is fable!'

He was at her side now. She had tried to resist, but not long, and her hand was in his, though her face was turned away.

'No--no----' she faltered, but he would not let her speak.

'All a fable of sorrow and a dream of parting, sweetheart! And now we have waked to meet again, your hand in my hand, my heart to your heart--your lips to mine----'

She almost shrieked aloud in terror then and threw herself back bodily, as from the edge of a precipice. She might have fallen if he had not still held her hand, and as she recovered herself she tried to withdraw it. In her distress, words came that she regretted afterwards.

'Do you think that only you are human, of us two?' she cried, in passionate protest against passion itself, against him, against life, but still twisting her wrist in his grip and trying to wrench it away. 'For the love of heaven, Giovanni----'

'No--for love of me----'

She broke from him, for when he felt that he was hurting her his fingers relaxed. But she could not stay her own words.

'Yes, I love you,' she cried almost fiercely, as she stepped backwards. 'Right or wrong, I cannot unmake myself, and as for lying to you, I will not! God is my witness that I mean to love you living as I have loved you dead, without one thought of earth or one regret for what might have been! But, oh, may God forgive me, too, if I wish that we were side by side in one grave, at peace for ever!'

'Dead? Why? With life before us----'

'No!' She interrupted him with rising energy. 'No, Giovanni, no! I was weak for a moment, but I am strong again. I can wait for you, and you will find strength to wait for me. You are so brave, Giovanni, you can be so generous, when you will! You will wait, too!'

'For what?'

'For the end that will be the beginning, for God's great To-morrow, when you will come to be with me for ever and ever, beyond the world, and all parting and all pain!'

There was a deep appeal to higher things in her words and in her voice, too, but it did not touch him; he only knew that at the very moment when she had seemed to be near yielding, the terrible conviction of her soul had come once more between him and her.

'There is no beyond,' he answered, chilled and sullen again. 'You live in a lying legend; your life is a fable and your sacrifice is a crime.'

The cruel words struck her tormented heart, as icy hailstones bruise the half-clad body of a starving child, out in the storm.

'You hurt me very much,' she said in a low voice.

'Forgive me!' he cried quickly. 'I did not mean to. I forget that you believe your dreams, for I cannot live in visions as you do. I only see a blind force, striking in the dark, a great injustice done to us both--a wrong I will undo, come what may!'

'You know my answer to that. You can undo nothing.'

'I am not answered yet. You say you love me--prove it!'

'Only my life can,' said the nun; 'only our two lives can prove our love, for we can live for each other still, perhaps we shall be allowed to die for each other, and in each other we shall find strength to resist----'

'Not to resist love itself, Angela.'

'No, not to resist all that is good and true in love.'

'I cannot see what you see,' he answered. 'Nothing human is beyond my comprehension, good or bad, but you cannot make a monk of me, still less a saint--a Saint Louis of Gonzaga, who was too modest to look his own mother in the face!'

He laughed roughly, but checked himself at once, fearing to hurt her again.

She turned to him with a look of gentle authority.

'In spite of what you have done to-night,' she said, 'you are such a manly man, that you can be the man you will. Listen! If another woman tried to get your love, could you resist her? Would you, for love of me?'

'She would have small chance, you know that well enough.'

'There is another woman in me, Giovanni. Resist her!'

'I do not understand.'

'You must try! There is another woman in me, or what is left of her, and she is quite different from my real self. Resist her for my sake, as I am fighting her with all my strength. It was she who tempted you to bring me here by a trick you are ashamed of already; it was she that made me weak, just now; but she is not the woman you love, she is not Angela, she is not worthy of you; and as for me, I hate her, with all my soul!'

Severi had said truly that he could not understand, and instead of responding to her appeal, he turned impatient again.

'You choose your words well enough,' he answered, 'but women's fine speeches persuade women, not men. No man was ever really moved to change his mind by a woman's eloquence, though we will risk our lives for a look of yours, for a touch--for a kiss!'

Sister Giovanna sighed and turned from him. The razor-edge of extremest peril was passed, for the words that left him cold and unbelieving had brought back conviction to her soul. She could live for him, pray for him, die for him, but she would not sin for him nor lift a hand to loose the vows that bound her to the religious life. Yet she did not see that she was slowly driving him to a state of temper in which he might break all barriers. Very good women rarely understand men well until it is too late, because men very rarely make any appeal to what is good in woman, whereas they lie in wait for all her weaknesses. It is almost a proverbial truth that men of the most lawless nature, if not actually of the worst character, are often loved by saintly women, perhaps because the true saint sees some good in every one and believes that those who have least of it are the ones who need help most. Sister Giovanna was not a saint yet, but she was winning her way as she gained ground in the struggle that had been forced upon her that night, so cruelly against her will, and having got the better of a temptation, her charity made her think that Giovanni Severi was farther from it than he was. Outward danger was near at hand, just when inward peril was passed.

As if he were weary of the contest of words, he left the writing-table, sat down in a big chair farther away, and stared at the pattern in the carpet.

'You are forcing me to extremities,' he said, after a long pause, and rather slowly. 'Unless you consent to appeal to the Pope for your freedom, I will not let you leave this house. You are in my power here, and here you shall stay.'

She was more surprised and offended than indignant at what she took for an empty threat, and she was not at all frightened. Women never are, when one expects them to be. She drew her long cloak round her with simple dignity, crossed the room without haste, and stopped before the locked door, turning her head to speak to him.

'It is time for me to go,' she said gravely. 'Open the door at once, please.'

She could not believe that he would refuse to obey her, but he did not move; he did not even look up, as he answered:

'If I keep you a prisoner, there will be a search for you. You may stay here a day, a week, or a month, but in the end you will be found here, in my rooms.'

'And set free,' the nun answered, from the door, with some contempt.

'Not as you think. You will be expelled from your order for scandalous behaviour in having spent a night, or a week, or a month in an officer's lodging. What will you do then?'

'If such a thing were possible, I would tell the truth and I should be believed.' But her anger was already awake.

'The thing is very possible,' Giovanni answered, 'and no one will believe you. It will be out of the question for you to go back to your Convent, even for an hour. Even if the Mother Superior were willing, it could not be done. In the Middle Ages, you would have been sent to a prison for penitents for the rest of your life; nowadays you will simply be turned out of your order with public disgrace, the papers will be full of your story, your aunt will make Rome ring with it----'

'What do you mean by all this?' cried the Sister, breaking out at last. 'Are you trying to frighten me?'

'No. I wish you to know that I will let nothing stand between you and me--nothing, absolutely nothing.' He repeated the word with cold energy. 'When it is known that you have been here for twenty-four hours, you will be forced to marry me. Nothing else can save you from infamy. Even Madame Bernard will not dare to give you shelter, for she will lose every pupil she has if it is found out that she is harbouring a nun who has broken her vows, a vulgar bad character who has been caught in an officer's lodgings! That is what they will call you!'

At first she had not believed that he was in earnest, but she could not long mistake the tone of a man determined to risk much more than life and limb for his desperate purpose. Her just anger leaped up like a flame.

'Are you an utter scoundrel, after all? Have you no honour left? Is there nothing in you to which a woman can appeal? You talk of being human! You prate of your man's nature! And in the same breath you threaten an innocent girl with public infamy, if she will not disgrace herself of her own free will! Is that your love? Did I give you mine for that? Shame on you! And shame on me for being so deceived!'

Her voice rang like steel and the thrusts of her deadly reproach pierced deep. He was on his feet, in the impulse of self-defence, before she had half done, trying to silence her--he was at her side, calling her by her name, but she would not hear him.

'No, I believed in you!' she went on. 'I trusted you! I loved you--but I have loved a villain and believed a liar, and I am a prisoner under a coward's roof!' Beseeching, he tried to lay his hand upon her sleeve; she mistook his meaning. 'Take care!' she cried, and suddenly the revolver was in her hand. 'Take care, I say! A nun is only a woman after all!'

He threw himself in front of her in an instant, his arms wide out, and as the muzzle came close against his chest, he gave the familiar word of command in a loud, clear tone:

'Fire!'

Their eyes met, and they were both mad.

'If you despise me for loving you beyond honour and disgrace, then fire, for I would rather die by your hand than live without you! I am ready! Pull the trigger! Let the end be here, this instant!'

He believed that she would do it, and for one awful moment she had felt that she was going to kill him. Then she lowered the weapon and laid it on the chair beside her with slow deliberation, though her hands shook so much that she almost dropped it. As if no longer seeing him, she turned to the door, folded her hands on the panel, and leaned her forehead against them.

He heard her voice, low and trembling:

'Forgive us our sins, as we forgive them that trespass against us!'

His own hand was on the revolver to do what she had refused to do. As when the cyclone whirls on itself, just beyond the still storm-centre, and strikes all aback the vessel it has driven before it for hours, so the man's passion had turned to destroy him. But the holy words stayed his hand.

'Angela! Forgive me!' he cried in agony.

The nun heard him, raised her head and turned; his suffering was visible and appalling to see. But she found speech to soothe it.

'You did not know what you were saying.'

'I know what I said.'

He could hardly speak.

'You did not mean to say it, when you brought me here.' She was prompting him gently.

'No.' He almost whispered the one word, and then he regretted it. 'I hardly know what I meant to say,' he went on more firmly, 'but I know what I meant to accomplish. That is the truth, such as it is. I saw this afternoon that I should never persuade you to ask for your freedom unless I could talk to you alone where you must hear me; the chance came unexpectedly and I took it, for it would never have come again. I had no other place, I had not thought of what I should say, but I was ready to risk everything, all for all--as I have done----'

'You have, indeed,' the nun said slowly, while he hesitated.

'And I have failed. Forgive me if you can. It was for love of you and for your sake.'

'For my sake, you should be true and brave and kind,' answered the Sister. 'But you ask forgiveness, and I forgive you, and I will try to forget, too. If I cannot do that, I can at least believe that you were mad, for no man in his senses would think of doing what you threatened! If you wish to live so that I may tell God in my prayers that I would have been your wife if I could, and that I hope to meet you in heaven--then, for my sake, be a man, and not a weakling willing to stoop to the most contemptible villainy to cheat a woman. Your brother was nearly killed in doing his duty here and you have taken his place. Make it your true calling, as I have made it mine to nurse the sick. At any moment, either of us may be called to face danger, till we die; we can feel that we are living the same life, for the same hope. Is that nothing?'

'The same life? A nun and a soldier?'

'Why not, if we risk it that others may be safe?'

'And in the same hope? Ah no, Angela! That is where it all breaks down!'

'No. You will live to believe it is there that all begins. Now let me go.'

Severi shook his head sadly; she was so unapproachably good, he thought--what chance had a mere man like himself of really understanding her splendid, saintly delusion?

Pica had turned the key on the outside and had taken it out, obeying his orders; but Giovanni had another like it in his pocket and now unlocked and opened the door. The nun went out, drawing her black hood quite over her head so that it concealed her face, and Giovanni followed her downstairs and held an umbrella over her while she got into the carriage, for it was still raining.

'Good-night,' he said, as Pica shut the door.

He did not hear her answer and the brougham drove away. When he could no longer see the lights, he went upstairs again, and after he had shut the door he stood a long time just where she had stood last. The revolver was still on the chair under the bright electric light. He fancied that the peculiar faint odour of her heavy cloth cloak, just damped by the few drops of rain that had reached it, still hung in the air. With the slightest effort of memory, her voice came back to his ears, now gentle, now gravely reproachful, but at last ringing like steel on steel in her generous anger. She had been present, in that room, in his power, during more than twenty minutes, and now she was gone and would never come again.

He had done the most rash, inconsequent, and uselessly bad deed that had ever suggested itself to his imagination, and now that all was over he wondered how he could have been at once so foolish, so brutal, and so daring. Perhaps five years of slavery in Africa had unsettled his mind; he had heard of several similar cases and his own might be another; he had read of officers who had lost all sense of responsibility after months of fighting in the tropics, perhaps from having borne responsibility too long and unshared, who had come back, after doing brave and honourable work, to find themselves morally crippled for civilised life, and no longer able to distinguish right from wrong or truth from falsehood.

It had all happened quickly but illogically, as events follow each other in dreams, from the moment when he had gone to the Convent hospital with Monsignor Saracinesca till the brougham drove away in the dark, taking Angela back. He understood for the first time how men whom every one supposed to be of average uprightness could commit atrocious crimes; he shuddered to think what must have happened if a mere chance had not changed his mood, making him ask Angela's forgiveness and prompting him to let her go. She had touched him, that was all. If her voice had sounded only a little differently at the great moment, if her eyes had not looked at him with just that expression, if her attitude had been a shade less resolute, what might not have happened? For the conviction that he could force her to be his wife if he chose to keep her a prisoner had taken possession of him suddenly, when all his arguments had failed. It had come with irresistible strength: the simplicity of the plan had been axiomatic, its immediate execution had been in his power, and while she was within the circle of his senses, his passion had been elemental and overwhelming. He tried to excuse himself with that; men in such cases had done worse things by far, and at least Angela had been safe from violence.

But his own words accused him; he had threatened her, he had talked of bringing infamy and public disgrace on the woman he loved, in order to force her to marry him; he had thought only of that end and not at all of the vile means; it all took shape now, and looked ugly enough. He felt the blood surging to his sunburnt forehead for shame, perhaps for the first time in his life, and the sensation was painfully humiliating.

It made a deep impression on him when he realised it. Often enough he had said that honour was his god, and he had taken pleasure in proving that he who makes the rule of honour the law of his life must of necessity be a good man, incapable of any falsehood or meanness or cruelty, and therefore truthful, generous, and kind; in other words, such an one must really be all that a good Christian aims at being. The religion of honour, Giovanni used to say, was of a higher nature than Christianity, since Christians might sin, repent, and be forgiven again and again, to the biblical seventy times seven times; but a man who did one dishonourable deed in his whole life ceased to be a man of honour for ever. Having that certainty before his eyes, how could he ever be in danger of a fall?

But now he was ashamed, for he had fallen; he had forsaken his deity and his faith; the infamy he had threatened to bring on Angela had come back upon him and branded him. It was not because he had brought her to his lodging to talk with him alone, for he saw nothing dishonourable in that, since he felt sure that no harm could come to her in consequence. The dishonour lay in having thought of the rest afterwards, and in having been on the point of carrying out his threat. If he had kept her a prisoner only a few hours, the whole train of results would most probably have followed; if he had not let her go till the next day, they would have been inevitable and irretrievable. Nothing could have saved Sister Giovanna then.

As he saw the truth more and more clearly, shame turned into something more like horror, and as different from mere humiliation as remorse is from repentance. Thinking over what he had done, he attempted to put himself in Angela's place, and to see, or guess, how he would behave if some stronger being tried to force him to choose between public ignominy and breaking a solemn oath. Moreover, he endeavoured to imagine what the nun, as distinguished from the mere woman, must have felt when she found herself trapped in a man's rooms and locked in. Even his unbelief instinctively placed Sister Giovanna higher in the scale of goodness than Angela Chiaromonte; he was an unbeliever, but not a scoffer, for somehow the rule of honour influenced him there, too. Nuns could really be saints, and were often holy women, and the fact that they were mistaken, in his opinion, only made their sacrifice more complete, since they were to receive no reward where they hoped for an eternal one; and he no longer doubted that Sister Giovanna was as truly good in every sense as any of them. What must she not have felt, less than an hour ago, when he had entered the room, telling her roughly that she was in his power, beyond all reach of help? Yet he had cherished the illusion that he was an honourable man, who would never take cruel advantage of any woman, still less of an innocent girl, far less, still, of a nursing nun, whose dress alone would have protected her from insult amongst any men but criminals.

In his self-contempt he hung his head as he sat alone by the table, half-fancying that if he raised his eyes he would see his own image accusing him. Sister Giovanna herself would have been surprised if she could have known how complete her victory had been. His god had forsaken him in his great need, and though he could not believe in hers, he was asking himself what inward strength that must be which could make a woman in extremest danger so gentle and yet so strong, so quick to righteous anger and yet so ready to forgive what he could never pardon in himself. _

Read next: Chapter 16

Read previous: Chapter 14

Table of content of White Sister


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book